State House sweep: the real Republican revolution.

• Author: Hood, John

On Election Day, Pennsylvania's Republican Party--with successful Senate candidate Rick Santorum and gubernatorial candidate Tom Ridge at the top of the ticket--padded its lead in the state Senate and came one seat shy of seizing the state House. Then, a week later, Democratic Rep. Tom Stish made a fateful announcement: He was switching to the GOP, giving them a 102-101 edge in the House. Democratic leaders reacted fiercely. "His act was disillusioned and disoriented and disgraceful," Pennsylvania House Speaker H. William DeWeese fumed, obviously feeling dissed himself. "He has spit upon democracy and his constituents."

Legislative chambers across the country are heating echoes of DeWeese's vitriol as longtime Democratic power brokers are forced to adjust painfully to the idea of riding the back bench for at least the next two or four years. They understand something the national media apparently don't. Republican gains in state and local offices could prove as significant as the party's gains in Congress. Indeed, the former are crucial to the latter in the long run.

Legislatures are, among other things, places for parties to train and groom future candidates for higher office. The Democratic Party's control over the majority of legislative chambers for most of the past 40 years (and, in the South, since Reconstruction) is an important reason for the Democratic Party's control of Congress during the same period. Democrats like government at all levels, and that enthusiasm has translated into better candidates, whatever you think of their agendas.

Republicans, in contrast, have typically been weak congressional candidates. Since they don't like government and prefer to make money in private pursuits, they've come into the political arena with liabilities. Some have simply been cranks, running in previously safe Democratic seats. Even those with experience in the state legislature have so often been in the minority, with little to do but show up and vote "no," that they might as well be political novices.

OK, this year that didn't stop many COP candidates from winning. But if Republicans are to retain majority status on Capitol Hill, they'll have to get re-elected in years without quite so sharply drawn philosophical differences and without Bill Clinton's face to play with in campaign ads. Judging from previous crops of Republican candidates, this could be a challenge. They've often not dealt well with the media, they've been lesser known in...